If You Follow No Other Advice, Follow This

I'm stepping aside for the master – David Lubars. No one has ever said this better.

Let me know your thoughts.

The ONE Thing That Matters Most on Your Resume

Big surprise – experience matters most.

But don't panic. Experience is not limited to professional work or internships. Experience also includes involvement in campus organizations RELEVANT to the career you are pursuing. Creative directors want to see you took advantage of every opportunity afforded to you. Involvement shows passion, drive and commitment. 

However, they also want to see that you were an active, long-term participant – preferably a leader. One semester of participation reeks of "I did it so I could put in on my resume."

Why should you care? Well, if I'm interviewing a person for an advertising position and see they were not part of their campus ad club or did not participate in campaigns class, I don't consider them. EVER.

Seem harsh? Maybe. But I'm looking for someone who is going to be "all in" when they join my team. If you half-assed your opportunities in college, I expect you'll do the same on the job. Plus, I have a load of people to choose from. I can afford to be picky about whom I choose to interview. Can you afford to be dropped from consideration?

A sad example: Last week I was talking to a student I work with all the time. She told me about a friend of hers (a journalism major) who is dropping off the university's All-American publication so she can pick up more hours at HyVee. Yes, HyVee.

That HyVee job won't get her the job she wants once she graduates (except with another grocery store). While a position as one of the editors of a nationally-recognized, award-winning publication will. She is choosing the short-term over the long-term. And even if she needs the money, she should stay involved. There's no place on resumes for lack-of-participation excuses.

So please, get involved with career-relevant organizations while in college. And go all out. Not only will it give you material for your resume, it will give you a chance to grow within the field – while also starting your network.

Otherwise, prepare for a very long and frustrating job search.

Networking: Who Knows You?

My good friend George Weyrauch is constantly preaching "It's not who you know, but who knows you."

Over 60% of jobs are obtained through networking – and that number is even higher in the creative field. When it comes down to it, most people want to work with a known quantity.

Whenever I need to hire someone, the first thing I do is put the word out to people I trust. The basic question I ask is "Do you know someone I should be talking to for this position?"

And I get those kinds of phone calls/e-mails all the time. I've referred people I interviewed but didn't hire (they were very good, just didn't fit what I was after), students whose portfolios I reviewed, former co-workers and people I met through the KC Ad Club.

Get yourself in front of people. Join organizations like the local ad club, AIGA or other creative organizations. Volunteer to be on a committee – or two – or three. Go to all the events you can. Introduce yourself to people.

Just don't push your resume on people (big turnoff). Make sure they know who you are and what you do. Be visible. Be known.

Ask for business cards and then follow up quickly. Send them an e-mail telling them it was nice to meet them. Ask if they know anyone you should be talking to. You're MUCH more like to get through to the hiring person if you can say "So-and-so gave me your name and said I should talk to you about your opening."

You can find good advice on networking here and here.

Remember, it's about who knows you.

Say Thank You or Lose an Important Contact

"Thank you."

So simple. Yet so often overlooked.

And you'll be overlooked if you don't take the time to thank the people who help you.

I've had people whom I've never met (or don't know well) contact me for advice. I spend time reviewing their resume or portfolio samples, answering questions, whatever and then don't hear from them again. That is, until they need something else from me.

Needless to say, they get nothing else from me.

Please keep in mind that things as simple as reviewing resumes, looking over samples or answering your questions take time out of somebody's busy day. They don't owe you anything, so they're doing it to be helpful. At the very least, say thank you. Want to go a step further? Tell them when and where you land a job.

The benefit? I remember those who thank me. I especially remember those who keep me up-to-date on their progress and where they land. Those people receive my help in the future. I may even consider those people when I have a job opening.

How do you think my intern got his position with me?

Thanks for reading.

The Written Word – Your First Impression

Yesterday I received a self promo piece from a designer. It, sadly, included the following sentence:

"Time for trying to get the work done while your staff memebers take much needed breaks."

"Memebers?" Really? It was a horrible sentence to begin with, but to also misspell members?

I'm sure most people did what I did upon reading the line – promptly trashed the mailer.

Avoid the wastebasket. Carefully write and proof your cover letter, resume, e-mail correspondence and thank you note. And for God's sake, run spell check. It would have caught "memebers." Let's face it, if you're careless on something important to you, should I expect you to do any better on client work? No. You move straight to the reject pile.

I'm not asking for beautiful prose (unless you're a copywriter), just mistake-free text.

I know this advice seems obvious, or at least it should. Unfortunately I see way too many mistakes like the above and people don't realize how quickly and completely it can kill their chances for a job. And the poor guy in our example mass-mailed his piece. He turned off loads of potential employers with just one mistake.

ONE mistake.

The Power of Persistence

Wow. What a suck-ass job market. Especially for entry-level creatives.

The advertising field (which also strongly affects design and publishing) is a leading indicator of a worsening economy. Short-sighted companies cut their advertising budgets first – and increase them last. That, of course, has a huge effect on agency staffing.

Usually I have trouble keeping up with all my job-changing friends. But lately I don't know of anyone changing jobs. And I know of fewer places adding jobs. That's bad news for recent graduates.

Now that I've brought you down, let me share a secret weapon with you: persistence.

You need to keep at it. Your job search is your full-time job. I'm talking eight (or more) hours a day. Your day should include:

• researching – find out who's picking up new business
  
• networking – that includes classmates who graduated before you
  
• interviewing – set up informational interviews
  
• events – attend industry events, introduce yourself to people
  
• volunteering – get involved in the local industry organization
  
• pro bono work – a great way to get new work for your portfolio, professional references and contacts
  
• creating new work – keep making work for your portfolio, make it stronger
  
• finetuning – your resume and your portfolio

And you have to stick with it. Keep in mind, your competition is going through the same thing. Sometimes the person who gets the job is the one that outlasts everyone else (watch any competition reality show to confirm).

The Industry Take on Millennials

"Don't trust anyone over 30."

During the 60s and 70s this was viewed as a universal truth by baby boomers. Then, of course, they hit 30 (long, long ago). Now the saying seems to be "Don't trust anyone UNDER 30."

You can't read anything about so-called millennials without reading how they're pampered and unprepared for real life. That may be true in some cases – but that was also true for many in my generation (Gen-X) and all the proceeding generations.

So it's nice to read an industry article that isn't putting down millennials, but talking about how to work with them. Check it out. It will give you a feel for how the smarter agencies will approach you – and how to pick out the dumber agencies.